Cowboy Wisdom (12 page)

T
he hotels were overflowing, but the proprietor of one small place agreed to house [Pete] in a room with another guest, provided
the consent of the first guest could be secured. This was easily done and the two shared a double bed. Pete and the roommate
talked of many things, among them Belle Starr and her escapades. During the conversation, Pete entertained a keen desire to
meet this famous Western woman.

The next morning, Pete found that the other guest had risen before him. When he went down to the veranda, a fine horse stood
saddled at the rack. His roommate came out and mounted.

“Did you say you’d like to see Belle Starr?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well,” said the other, turning to gallop away, “you slept with her last night.”

—M
ODY
C. B
OATWRIGHT
Dallas, Texas c. 1934

N
ow look-a-here, young fellow, you look honest and smart. You come up to Deadwood with me, and start practicin’ and if there
isn’t enough law business to begin with I’ll make it for you.

—C
ALAMITY
J
ANE
to a young lawyer encountered on a train 1877

Y
ou don’t sight them. You just swing with them, and when it feels right, pull.

—A
NNIE
O
AKLEY
Darke Country, Ohio c. 1890

I
was eight years old when I made my first shot, and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made. I saw a squirrel
run down over the grass in front of the house, through the orchard and stop on the fence to get a hickory nut. I decided to
shoot it and ran into the house to get a gun which was hanging on the wall and which I knew to be loaded. I was so little
I had to jump up on a chair and slide it down to the mantel and then to the ground. I laid the gun on the railing of the porch,
and then recalled that I had heard my brother say about shooting: “It is a disgrace to shoot a squirrel anywhere but in the
head because it spoils the meat to hit him elsewhere.” I took the remark literally and decided, in a flash, that I must hit
that squirrel in the head, or be disgraced. It was a wonderful shot, going right through the head from side to side. My mother
was so frightened when she learned that I had taken down the loaded gun and shot it that I was forbidden to touch it again
for eight months.

—A
NNIE
O
AKLEY
in
Philadelphia Public Ledger
1919

“
Y
ou cain’t shoot a man in the tail like a quail.”

—A
NNIE
O
AKLEY
according to Rogers and Hammerstein’s

Annie Get Your Gun
1947

T
he funniest sight in the world to a veteran cowhand was a greenhorn who had suffered a sprained ankle or dislocated shoulder
from falling off his horse.

—W
ILLIAM
H. F
ORBIS
Bozeman, Montana 1973

T
here was once this man from back East who thought he would fancy the life of a cowpoke, so he joined up for a cattle drive.
The first night, as the men were bedding down, someone tossed the man a piece of wood. “Here, enjoy this,” he said. “Tomorrow
we’re hitting the plains and you cain’t git no kind of pillow out there.” They say the fellow gave up and went home the next
day.

—A
NONYMOUS

30 miles to water

20 miles to wood

10 inches to Hell

Gone Back East to Wife’s family

—Sign found on the door of an abandoned shack Texas panhandle c. 1910

A
tenderfoot, a regular softie greenhorn, come out from the East. I was dealin’ at a little minin’ joint called White Bonanza
in Colorado. This tenderfoot sat in the game, and he lost from the first turn.

“I say, you know,” he blurts out, “you must be cheating!”

Well, if it hadn’t been for his blamed Eastern accent, I’d ha’ shot him without thinkin’. As it was, everyone ducked. I jest
looked at him and said, “Young man, that means shootin’ out here.”

He got pretty white and said, “I—I didn’t mean any harm, but when you get a man’s money and he hasn’t any opportunity to get
it back, it looks queer, don’t you know? After all, old chap, gambling is cheating.”

The rest o’ the boys began to hustle him away, but I stopped ’em,an’ made him explain. He didn’t know any more about monty
than a hog does about a side-saddle, but he could argufy the spots off’n the cards. After he got through, I sat athinkin’.

“Boys,” I said, “this kid is right, though he don’t know which end of a gun to load. I’m a-goin’ to earn money after this.”

One o’ the boys, who had a claim that hadn’t panned out any too good, though there was pay dirt in it, sung out. “I’ll trade
you, sight unseen, my claim for what you got in the bank and yo’r lay-out.”

“You’re covered,” says I, and I ain’t never bet a cent on a card from that day to this.

—S
HANE
R
YDER
Abilene, Kansas 1869

E
arly in the spring of 1882 I was employed by a Mark Withers of Lockhart, to go up the trail with a herd to Kansas. I was pretty
much of a “tenderfoot,” just a slip of a boy, and the hands told me [another rider named] Hill was a pretty tough character
and would steal anything he could get his hands on, besides he might kill me if I didn’t watch him. They loaded me up pretty
well on this kind of information, and I really believed it. They would steal my matches, cartridges, cigarette papers, and
handkerchiefs, and tell me that Hill got them. I reached the time when I was deprived of almost everything I had and even
had to skin prickly pears to get wrapping for my cigarettes, believing all the while that the fellow Hill had cleaned me up.
Things were getting serious and I was desperate, and if Hill made any kind of a break the consequences would have probably
been disaster. At last Hill, who was fully aware of the game that was being played on me, called me aside and told me that
it was all a put-up job, and said it had been carried far enough. We all had a good laugh and from that time forward harmony
reined in camp.

—H
ENRY
D. S
TEELE
San Antonio, Texas 1920

T
he first day in the saddle on the open range was a tough one on the tenderfoot. The easiest saddle on the rider in the world
once you are used to it, the cow saddle is far harder to get on comfortable terms with than the flat pigskin; it gives a beginner
harder cramps and tender spots on more parts of the anatomy than any punishment conceivable short of an inquisition rack.

—E
DGAR
B
EECHER
B
RONSON
New York City 1910

T
he ranch foreman, on welcoming Mr. New Yorker, a visitor, would say something like the following: “Mr. New Yorker, shake hands
with Hen. Hen, this is Mr. New Yorker from back East. He’s a friend of the boss. Mr. New Yorker, Hen’s been with our outfit
for six years, and is generally reckoned to be the slickest rider in this half of the country.”

If, after Hen had passed beyond carshot, Mr. New Yorker had asked the foreman for Hen’s last name, the questioner would have
seen a look of sudden surprise, and would have heard: “Well, I’ll be damned. I never thought of that. He likely has got one
somewhere. I dunno what it is. He’s just Hen, and if he thinks that’s good enough for him, it shore is for us, and that’s
about the size of it. Say, stranger, let me give you some advice: If I were you I wouldn’t try to hurry nothing’, and I’d
travel on the idea that Hen likely gave a first-class funeral to the rest of his names, and I wouldn’t ask him for no resurrections.”

—P
HILIP
A
SHTON
R
OLLINS
Cheyenne, Wyoming 1922

S
oon as the newness wears off, [greenhorns] quit and go back with the idea that they know all about this—that there’s no more
to learn—when at the same time they haven’t started to know at all, and are just as helpless as ever. Some folks have an idea
that you can qualify to be an all around good cowhand in a couple of years, and where they get that idea, I don’t know.

—F
OREMAN
Three Rivers Cattle Company, Montana 1902

I
am going to say something about the great American game—draw poker. It stands alone, in a class by itself. If it have a peer,
‘tis the game of life. Life itself is but a gamble. I am not a gambler, but most real cowmen or punchers I ever knew could
play good enough to lose.

—O
SCAR
R
USH
Salt Lake City, Utah 1930

I
’m buyin’ a round of drinks an’ supper for the whole crowd. An’ if anybody present reckons he can play poker he’s goin’ to
need a barrel to get home in.

—H
OPALONG
C
ASSIDY

I
t takes a lot of courage for a man to pay out his dollar to enter a rodeo and then, after not winning a red cent, walk away
saying, “Sure lucky I didn’t get hurt.”